Vestine died on Oct. 20 from heart and respiratory failure in a
hotel outside Paris after the band completed a tour of France, said
Beth Comstock, a spokeswoman for Tapestry Artists, which represents
the group.
When other band members went to Vestine's hotel room to pick him
up for the flight home, they found him dead, she said.
A wake and funeral for Vestine were held Nov. 19 in Eugene, Ore.
Before Vestine died, he asked that his ashes, now buried at Oak
Hill Cemetery, eventually be transported to a crater on the dark
side of the moon named after his father, a noted astrophysicist.
Born Christmas Day, 1944, Henry ``The Sunflower'' Vestine joined
Canned Heat in 1966 after playing in Frank Zappa's band, The
Mothers of Invention.
A passionate collector of blues records, Vestine found his
artistic home with Canned Heat, an electric boogie band formed in
1965 by blues fanatics Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, a 300-pound singer
nicknamed ``The Bear.''
Along with ``Going Up the Country,'' the band's biggest hit was
``On the Road Again'' in 1968.
Canned Heat was notable for performing at three of rock 'n'
roll's most famous festivals - the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967,
Woodstock in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in England in
1970.
In a 1995 interview, another Canned Heat guitarist, Junior
Watson, described Vestine's trademark angry, buzzing guitar sound
as ``blues with that kind of obnoxious rock and roll attitude.''
Canned Heat never recovered as a creative unit after Wilson's
death from a drug overdose in 1970. After Hite died in 1981, the
group ``became nothing more than a name,'' according to the Rolling
Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll.
Vestine briefly left the group in 1969 to perform with jazz
saxophonist Albert Ayler, and returned in 1970.
Members of rock group ZZ Top cited Canned Heat as one of their
biggest influences.
Vestine is survived by his teenage son, Jesse, a press release
issued by Tapestry Artists in Encino, Calif., said.
Date: 97-11-21 21:53:58 EST
.c The Associated Press